I Never Win

So last week I was taking a break from a tedious translation job by surfing through some of my favorite blogs. After reading through all of the posts over at CFDC, Dailykos and Eschaton, I stumbled upon a contest that they were running over at Ivy Style (ok, yeah, I took a pretty long break).


I usually don’t enter online contests because they often seem like just a ploy for Viagara sales reps and unfortunate Nigerian bankers to collect my contact information. And also, because I never win.

But the Ivy Style contest caught my interest and I decided to roll-the-dice.The contest asked you to submit an answer to the following question:

If you could travel in time and visit yourself as a “schoolboy” (i.e., teenager) in order to give yourself some advice that age and wisdom has brought, what advice would you give?

Great question. Surprisingly difficult to answer.

I started to think about all of life’s lessons and tried to come up with something both prescient and witty from my experiences overseas and throughout my career.

But of life’s lessons that seem to be most present in my mind lately, the education that I have received from Crossfit resonates the loudest.

I submitted the following: “You will always be your fiercest critic and most formidable rival. Make that be your advantage, not an obstacle.”

This submission was the direct result of all of the WODs that seemed impossible until I finished them. Crossfit has taught me that I am capable of so much more than I ever expected of myself, and that the only thing preventing me from achieving my goals, is usually me.

My submission won.